The FEB is one of the faculties which has been called upon to teach their curriculum in China. However, the staff members of the faculty are not yet enamored with the University Board’s plans to open a sister campus. One of the main points of criticism is that the Board lacks a business plan in which the feasibility of the branch campus has been researched. That business plan is now being drawn up, confirms Stephan van Galen, head of the Office of the University. ‘We have agreed to make a business case together within two months’, he says.

The FEB Yantai Advisory Committee called for a business plan to be drafted back in October. ‘A project of this scale and impact in the long term cannot begin without thorough feasibility research or a business plan’, the members of the committee wrote in their report.

Committee

One of the members of the committee, Frans Rutten, is now a member of the committee which will draw up the business plan, FEB dean Harry Garretsen confirms. ‘The University Board has set up a committee to deal with the Yantai business case on their behalf. We were asked as a faculty to provide two members, and we have. But those two members are not there on behalf of FEB or to represent our interests or anything like that. The committee is made up of six members at present.’

Serious doubts remain in the faculty about the plans for the Chinese campus. The business plan is meant to ensure more consensus within the faculty.